


Down, Not Defeated

by Darkravenwrote



Series: Sons of Adam [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Pre-Slash, Stockholm Syndrome, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 13:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1227304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkravenwrote/pseuds/Darkravenwrote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Article Three of the Peace Treaty between Angels and humanity is dedicated to The Sacrificial Agreement. It states that once every five years, it is an angel’s right to descend from heaven and take one human Sacrifice per celestial being.  The collection shall last through one full passing of the lunar cycle and every Sacrifice shall be blessed with a mark from Heaven by their Selector.</p>
<p>The angel comes for Sam Winchester on a Thursday. Sammy says the mark is burning and Dean knows it's time.</p>
<p>Written for the Apocalypse Bang on LiveJournal</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down, Not Defeated

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the lovely Xavia for being an amazing cheerleader, fantastic friend, awesome ameri-picker and brilliant beta. I couldn't have done it without you and I'm so glad we met over your fucking amazing xover fic.
> 
> Also, to my lovely artist kiki-miserychic. The original art post can be found [here](http://kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com/227021.html) on LiveJournal, go give her some love, she deserves it.  
> And lastly, thank you to unavoidedcrisis for running the Bang.
> 
> Additional note: Advance apologies for any britishisms that slip through. I didn't realise how different it would be to try and write American characters until I actually tried (my soul rests in Harry Potter and my cuddles in Merlin so I've never had this problem before). I think we got most of them, although I left my spelling the same to save myself an aneurism, but apologies if we didn't catch any. Also, having just edited them manually, thanks AO3, I have found I've been having a secret love affair with the italics. They all sound necessary in my head and I apologise for this too. Or maybe it just felt like there were loads, I don't know.

Article Three of the Peace Treaty between Angels and humanity is dedicated to The Sacrificial Agreement. It states that once every five years, it is an angel’s right to descend from heaven and, as payment for their peace, take one human Sacrifice per celestial being. The collection shall last through one full passing of the lunar cycle and every Sacrifice shall be blessed with a mark from Heaven by their Selector.

No one knows how they choose which human they'll take. What they _do_ know is that angels are powerful and stoic and merciless, and they have ruled over Earth with a firm fist since the war twenty years previously.

They know it's easier to comply, that angels are few in comparison to humanity despite their control and that the loss of so few lives for the entire species is a small price to pay.

They know angels can't be killed. This small piece of information was learned through years of bloody war and death.

And Dean? Dean knows that, despite the fact that he probably can't do anything, that this isn't a war he can win, the little tattoo inked beside Sam's left clavicle is ugly, damning and he's never felt a hate so strong.

Dean knows that angels are dicks.

And nothing, not Hell or high water, not even a fucking rabies-ridden, son-of-a-bitch dog of God, _nothing_ , is taking his brother away from him.

 

*    *    *

Not fifteen minutes after Sam wakes up, sweaty and clutching at his chest – lip bleeding from where he's bitten through the skin in his monstrous effort not to scream – Dean's on the road. The wheel is sweaty under his palms and his head keeps sidetracking back to Sam trying to distract himself back in their shabby little palm tree fiasco of a motel room.

The bitch laughs in his face as soon as she appears in all her rouge lipstick, dark sassy glory. She's all gentle curves and swaying hips as she approaches him but her lips are set in a cruel, knowing smile and her crimson eyes flicker around them like she's wary of being caught here.

But the crossroads are deserted and her crowing echoes out into the pitch of night for only his ears.

“Seriously?” She simpers, fingertips walking aggravatingly slowly up his bare arm. He's suddenly aware of the chill wind – wishes he'd picked up his coat when he'd leapt for the Impala – and the simmering warmth of her skin combined with sharp nails makes him want to itch. “You think I'd fuck with an angel? For you?”

Her eyebrow is already pissing him the hell off but aggression isn't going to get him anywhere here and desperate times call for desperate measures. Obviously – or he wouldn't be standing in a damp, dirt road in the middle of fucking nowhere asking a demon, of all things, for help.

“I thought you liked messing with upstairs plans,” he says, tilting his head and flashing her a cocky grin.

“ _You're_ the 'upstairs plans',” she purrs back at him, the golden glitter of her fingernails glinting through the darkness with the sarcasm of her air quotes. “You don't go from tickling the lion's ears to yanking on its tail and expect to get away unscathed, know what I'm sayin'?” She flicks her dark hair back behind her shoulders – it sheens in the pale light of the full moon, covered as it is by ominous clouds. Dean isn't at all comfortable – in fact he's distinctly _uncomfortable_ \- with the way she keeps brushing against his back while she circles him like a shark scenting out possible prey.

“You saying you won't help me? I haven't even asked for anything yet.” It's a weak comeback; they both know exactly what he's here for.

“Don't play dumb, sweetie, it doesn't suit that pretty face of yours.” Her eyes dance down to his lips and she stares lasciviously for a second more than is socially acceptable. But then he's getting chummy with a fricking demon here, he shouldn't expect conversational norms to apply. He dodges nimbly when she swats playfully at his behind. “We both know you want me to carve that ink out of your brother's skin.”

“Yeah, so what would I need to be offering for you to get in on this little deal here?” The breeze is cold against his sweaty palms as he waves them emphatically between the two of them, bobbing his head slightly at the rhythm.

“Nothing,” she replies promptly, smudging at the pristine line of her lips and licking a trail behind her finger.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. You don't have anything valuable enough for us to get involved here, Mr Winchester.” And suddenly she's cold and business-like. “And, no, before you ask, your soul isn't enough. You could damn yourself for eternity ten times over and it wouldn't be enough. Sorry, boy-o, but you ain't worth upsetting the Winged Warriors over.” She smirks at him, a stray breath of laughter husking from between her parted lips. “It's a dog eat dog world up here and we're perfectly happy laying low at this particular point in the cycle while you mongrels brawl it out between yourselves.”

Her low, murmuring laughter echoes after she's vanished and Dean knows he'll regret the dent he bangs into the trunk of his baby later, along with the precious gas he just wasted on his mini road trip.

*    *    *

 

Nineteen hours of gruelling research and fake-calm phonecalls to Bobby later, Dean has his answer.

In retaliation to the fucked-up-ness of the universe, he does the only thing any old-fashioned, country-bred man would: he goes to a bar.  Or, more realistically, half-drags, half-convinces Sam that it is perfectly normal to get uproariously drunk on a Monday afternoon.  He doesn’t like lying to his brother but the next part of the plan will go much more smoothly - and with less moping and bitch-whining - if Sammy is in the dark.  So, therefore, operation Distract Sam is a go.  

Because Dean’s brother is nothing if not meticulous, and when he researches something - for some reason particularly when the outcome is connected with their lives - he throws everything at the task.  And he is smart.  There’s a very real possibility he’ll find what Dean has found in the small, small print of his battered little copy of the Agreement about how to stop an angel from taking a sacrifice.  And even though, for the moment, it seems liquor is as efficient at distracting an adult as cotton candy is to a child, the possibility is still frighteningly real.

And there is only one way.  Singular.  Dean has checked.  A million times.

Sam might have been the lawyer-in-training but Dean knows how to weedle his way through terms and conditions better than most swindlers and there had been needles in haystacks, and fine tooth combs invested in rooting through this one.

The only way to stop a sacrifice is to freely volunteer to take their place.

 

*    *    *

 

Apparently, distracting Sam is more of a mammoth task than he remembers though, because when he wakes up his brother is already hitting the books.  From the look of him - dark circles ringing his eyes and fingers itching at his chest - Dean guesses intoxication may never have stopped him in the first place; Dean had slumbered off into a blessedly dreamless but sweaty sleep and he doubts his brother paused to draw breath before turning back to his research.

“Hey, Dean, check this,” Sam pounces enthusiastically as soon as Dean starts to stir.  “Back when the Agreement was first sanctioned, there was a massive influx of missing families.  One day they’d be gone and the next they’d reappear.  But, get this, all minus one member.  And the only reason I can come up with is that somehow people found a way of swapping sacrifices.”

And that train of thought needed to be derailed ten fucking minutes ago.  

“It’s probably just a coincidence, Sam.  People back then were going missing all the time,” Dean says, trying not to bullet from beneath his sheets and sneak glances at the scruffily written journal Sam’s poring over in the low, flickering light.  His watch tells him it’s just gone midnight but who the hell knows if it’s right.  There’s no electricity in this part of the country anymore, even further out, into sparser regions where the war never hit as hard, it’s a luxury people try and live without - backup generators can only last so long and perfecting the arts of the ancestors commercially can’t be done overnight.  They’ve got enough water mills and wind turbines to power the cell towers - or whatever technological mumbo-jumbo it is that keeps the network going - and Bobby’s drilled into them that a charged cell could be the difference between life and death.  But apart from that it’s campfires and smoke signals.

And as for the sun.  Well, fat lot of good that would do you, angels might as well have taken that as well.

“But, Dean, listen.  There’s reports in here of bodies turning up with the mark on them.”  His eyes peer back at Dean widely, meaningfully.  And if Dean decides to be obtuse to draw out the conversation long enough for him to think of an excuse, well, he’ll just pat himself on the back a little harder because he’s pretty certain Sam’s heading to exactly the same place he ended up.  He just hasn’t found the official jargon yet.

“Yeah, that’s what tends to happen when they’re sacrificed.  Bodies,” he answers wryly, stalling.

“No, Dean,” and there’s the frustration and the huffing he’s familiar with from their hunting research.  The exasperation that Dean just doesn’t pick things up or jump through patterns like Sam does.  Supposedly.  “These bodies died and were found on years  _outside_ of the five year time frame.”

“It doesn’t say anywhere in the rules they have to kill ‘em immediately.” He swings up onto his feet and stalks across the room to his tattered duffle with the momentum.  “Maybe they lash ‘em to their chariots or something for a couple years.”

“That’s disgusting, Dean.”

“Angels are disgusting,  _Sam,_ ” Dean snaps back, rubbing needlessly hard at the skin between his eyebrows.

The silence that follows doesn’t break for forty-seven minutes.  It is tense and loud.  Just when Dean is starting to think he’ll have to try a different tact, Sam breaks in his bitchy, I’m-giving-in-but-I’m-not-really-giving-in way.

“Maybe,” he concedes.  “But I still think I’m on to something.”

Dean doesn’t mind watching the scowl that dawns on his brothers face or the aggression that lights behind his eyes.  He’s glad Sam wants to survive so fiercely.  What he doesn’t like is that he’s deceiving the only blood family he has left.  He doesn’t like the fact that he’s going to have to leave Sammy behind.  And soon.

Instead of thinking about the oncoming solemnities, he packs them back into the Impala and drives over what used to be called a state line.  He stops driving when the gas needle hits the ‘return to Bobby’s’ marker.  Considering how much of a guzzler his baby is, they don’t get too far over the border but Dean figures it isn’t going to make much difference anyway with the inky beacon carved on a pectoral two feet away from him.

The angel comes for Sam Winchester on a Thursday. Sammy says the mark is burning and Dean knows it's time.

They hunker down in the basement of the abandoned house they've moved on to, but Dean knows it won't make the slightest bit of difference just as surely as Sam does.  The inevitability of the situation makes Sam mopy and quiet and once he's settled down into a corner with an old, musky book not even Dean's best jokes can persuade him out.

The butt of his gun making contact with the back of Sam's head is loud in the silence but it's necessary and Dean knows they'll both get over it.  Eventually.  But there’s lightning flashing outside, a storm brewing and a cloying thickness in the air that history says means an angel is coming for you and Dean will do whatever’s necessary to save his little brother.

When it finally comes for them, all Dean hears over the grumbling from above and the howling wind is the distant rush he guesses must be the signature sound of feathers he's heard so much about.

_It_ is a him, physically speaking, but Dean's pro-free will and anti-body jacking so it's still an it.  There's only one reported quotation of an angel mentioning having to use wheels while on Earth  - a mouthy bastard who yapped some secrets before spiriting away a widow's child.  One angel getting his sarcasm on isn't exactly proof but it makes a hunter's suspicions rise almost as much as his hackles.  

Dean tries to ignore it because the wrench that throws into the morality of trying to find a way to mass murder the sons-of-bitches if they're wearing living meatsuits is explosive.  But when one's rattling the windows around you and glaring you down with eyes that look like emotionless ice on granite, it's hard to forget.

"Sam Winchester," it states evenly, gaze darting immediately to Sam's prone form once it's surveyed the room.  Suddenly, knocking out his brother so he's left defenceless doesn't sound like so much of a good idea anymore but Dean's so far in over his head he might as well be conversing with sewer rats.  And he's only human so mistakes are going to happen. The sound of it speaking reminds Dean of the whiskey he's got stashed in the boot of the Impala in a flask under the guise of Holy Water - gravel and husk that hurts his throat in sympathy as it rasps from its mouth.

It takes one firm step forward and that's enough to cure any of Dean's hesitation.  He strides further toward the centre of the room so he's more completely illuminated by the dull light slithering from between the thick clouds and through the tiny window above them.  He isn't having any second thoughts - you gotta do what you gotta do for family - but knowing you need to do something and actually setting the wheels in motion to  _do_ it are two very different things.

He isn't afraid. As much as his heart lurches in his chest- which he'll forever deny of course- and his throat thickens until it feels like it's clogging, and his feet shiver in his boots, he is a  _man_ , goddamn it. He's a fucking brave soldier, and he will not be known as weak-kneed. He doesn't hesitate from fear or second-guessing.  He does it so he has one last breath of fresh, free air before he vanishes from the Earth.  And to consider, one last time like a penance, how much this will feel like betrayal when Sammy wakes up.

"I volunteer," he says, as clearly and deeply as his lungs can manage.

The angel's eyes stay fixed on Sam for a few awful, gut-wrenching seconds before it tears itself away and stares back at Dean, eyebrows squeezed down like it isn't sure if that's in the rule book.  But it fricking is; Dean's got the page bookmarked and water stained in duplicate if its download link is on the fritz.  It's fucking allowed.

"I volunteer to take my brother's place as Sacrifice," Dean says again, just to be sure.  Who knows, if this is a spoken contract there might be wording issues with being so vague.

Still it remains aggravatingly silent, merely inching back towards Dean - blessedly away from Sam and, Dean isn't going to lie, that makes him breath a little easier despite the fact that he's just signed away his life.  It considers him for long enough that Dean worries his brother might start to awaken but the deal's been brokered now and there's nothing Sammy can do about it even if he was shouting his protest through a bullhorn.

"I accept your Sacrifice," it husks, bowing it's head slightly in acceptance and marching weightlessly - and should that even be linguistically possible? - until it's standing directly in front of Dean, where it halts abruptly.  

Dean can't help the audible gulp - that's just what happens when he's left with nothing but the unexpected.

Fingers stretch out to him and it grasps his shoulder tight, his skin sizzles and distorts at the contact, and he thinks 'this is it'. This is how he'll die and he's glad Sammy is too deep into unconsciousness to watch. But all that happens is that his own sacrificial mark burns itself onto his chest. Then it steps back, considering him as if he's done something amazing.

The fresh hand print seared into his shoulder is heavy and molten hot over his bones.

Rationality – what little of it remains after one has just given one’s soul and life over to the enemy willingly.  _Surrender,_ Dean's brain spits – tells him that these are his last moments; he's about to die. And he thinks he should be feeling...more. Everything. Helpless. Panicked.  _Angry_. But he's calm, staring at the angel, maintaining eye contact for an indiscriminate amount of time – trying to prove himself as an equal, not some snivelling weakling that will be cowed by his own mortality. He can be braver than that, for Sam.

“You have twelve hours,” it says eventually, because it must be bored of the silence and the  _staring_ \- Jesus Christ Dean is never initiating a contest in heaven. Ever.

“What? You not gonna get it over with?” There's a defensive reflex that makes his eyes dart to Sam's haphazard, sprawled form several metres away. God, when did his legs get so ginormous?

"You wish what could very likely be your brother's last memory of you to be of desperation and darkness? The few humans I have met struck me as sentimental. You do not wish for a more significantly satisfactory farewell?" It asks inquisitively, the confused line on its forehead deepening and its voice a low growling that feels intimate and dangerous in the small room.

That sets two sides of Dean warring against each other silently in his chest.  There's the not unsubstantial part of him - the brother who raised Sam from the boots up while their Dad was lost to the wilderness, location unknown - that wants to spend as much time as he can rip from fate's clasping fingers with his brother before this all catches up to him.  But there's also the logical section of his brain screaming at him that the more time he spends dithering - more talking and moping and time spent searching agonisingly for a solution that doesn't exist - the more difficult it will be for Sam to let go and move on once this whole fiasco is over.

But it doesn't appear he's being given a choice because the angel nods decisively, like there had been a proper hesitation in that moment, and disappears instantly with that rustling that makes Dean's skin itch.

Once Sam’s awake and coherent and thankfully not concussed - “on the head, Dean?  Really?” - there’s only one option Dean can think of that sounds plausible in a situation like this: return to basecamp.  

Sam mopes and wastes seven valuable hours while they’re streaming along the deserted, open roads, ignoring him like only a jilted little brother who knows the score can.  They should have been reminiscing about old times - when angels were a distant fear in a childhood nightmare - and belting out the lyrics to whatever’s coming off the archaic tapes playing on repeat.  Instead, they are silent and stony.  Dean isn’t complaining too much, though; he knows if conversation starts up Sam’s going to morph into Samantha and he’ll have to reiterate that ‘no, Miss America 2010, he doesn’t want to talk about his feelings.’  

Either that or another argument will threaten to explode his baby’s windows - and glass is damn valuable these days - and Dean feels like he’s spent forever debating angel-fu and his ‘sacrificial problem’, not just a few days.  So, yeah, thanks but no thanks.  Silence is great on his end too.

Bobby’s shack, when it comes into view at the centre of his private wasteland, is the most beautiful thing he’s seen since that half bottle of Jack they found abandoned by one of the old highways.  From the outside it looks half fallen down, half eaten by termites.  But on the inside there will be the strange but welcoming combination of dirt, musk, moonshine and books peeping out from every conceivable crevice.  

Dean’s always had his doubts about letting an obsessive alcoholic be the bookkeeper to the hunting profession’s by now extensive library.  But they don’t talk about that, partly because half the damn population is verging on alcoholism these days and partly because Bobby’s protected by unspoken rules.  So Dean ignores that just like he ignores a lot of other things.  The list is quite long when he stops for a second to think about it.  

It feels like home even before the customary ‘idjits’ hits Dean’s eardrums.  There’s the heat, for one, from the fire crackling merrily in the hearth - fueled by half a broken down couch skeleton and that’s too fucking tragic for words.  And the smell of soup - Bobby’s been in an ‘if it can’t be liquidised it ain’t worth havin’ ’ mood, but that’s cool.  As Sam had mumbled when it first wafted in their faces at the door, veg is veg and maybe it’ll stave off some of the medical misfortunes they all know Bobby’ll end up suffering.

Sam glares stonily and looks like he’s going to bitch Dean’s secret down the toilet but he stays quiet, mercifully, because he knows Dean is a sentimental fool and so help him he wants one last hour before he has to tell the truth.

They both resolutely ignore the way Bobby keeps glancing at the spot where Sam’s brand is etched under his shirt - the only obvious explanation for his still being alive is that he hasn’t been plucked off the face of the earth yet and if that didn’t make Bobby paranoid then Dean would’ve been worried.  But it’s obvious something’s up; angels usually come within the first two or so days to claim their prizes, which now Dean thinks about it makes this whole fiasco even more strange.

So Dean lets Bobby think  _Sam_ is still the one, lets him not exactly coddle - not Bobby’s style - but soften around him while Dean is treated like normal - as if he were a stray puppy that had wandered in, made itself at home and now Bobby can’t get rid of, so affection hidden under gruffness is the next logical step.

Sam, bless him, lets it happen.  Suffers in silence despite the doubt that brightens his eyes because he knows this is what Dean needs - a bit of normalcy to pull himself together.

Bobby rolls his eyes painfully and sighs dramatically, quick anger twisting his face as his customary insult slips from between his pursed lips, when Dean hints at what’s going on backstage.  He hits his books  _hard_ , dragging both of them down with him.  They read ridiculous lore and historical myth and shit loads of fictional baloney until their eyes blur and Dean thinks the angel might as well skip this year because his head is about to explode from reading so much  _crap_.

When he’s got forty-five minutes to go, he volunteers to grab the next bottle of whiskey from the kitchen.  He’s waved off distractedly.

He leaves the keys to the Impala on the side, then creeps down to the basement silently.  He doesn’t bother taking anything with him.  He won’t need them where’s he’s going anyway.

The basement is more like an impenetrable fort combined with a panic room than an underground storage space.  It’s all thick metal and sigils painstakingly gouged as thick as his fingers.  It’s spartan and abrupt but it does the job.  And, most importantly, the main deadbolt - a hulking great slab that wreaks of finality - is on the inside, riddled with anti-demon symbols.  

In fact, every sign known to man that will keep something out is in the room somewhere.  But none of them will work on an angel.  That’s not the reason he’s down here though.  He’s not down here to keep demon’s out, he’s down here to keep  _humans_ out - more specifically the two above him trying with all their mortal might to stop him from doing exactly what he’s about to do.  

He’s down here so that, should his courage fail now that there’s no danger to his family, he won’t have anywhere his cowardice can try to flee him to.  He’s down here so that they won’t have to watch when the monster snatches him and snuffs out his life without even having to twitch its stolen pinky finger.

The deadbolt makes a pretty hefty clank and squeal when he heaves it across the door.  So it isn’t long before he hears boots clamouring down the staircase and Sam’s voice, stern and fiercely angry, yelling his name.  Bobby’s echoing mumbles - probably longsuffering, definitely uncomplimentary - follow soon after.

“You don’t have to do this, Dean,” Sam starts to reason through the tiny grill.  “There’s got to be another way.”  Except he does and there isn’t.

“This  _is_ the other way, Sam,” he says, the tightness in his chest making the twang over his brother’s name more pronounced.  He strides purposefully to the bed hanging forlornly from one wall and sits on it tentatively, fortifying himself to weather Sam’s storm while he waits for the real thunder to arrive.

And arrive it does.  With lashing lightning and a deep rumble so loud it penetrates through the ground and vibrates through his teeth, drowning out Sam’s frantic rage.  It appears with its back to the door, cutting off the view of Sam’s eyes, wide and deep and pained.  He’s grateful for that at least.

The sky sparks again and just the small opening above him, where the fan is spinning frenziedly and slicing through the air with the sharp sound of knives swiping and sparring, lets in enough light to illuminate the room fully for the second it lasts.  Eyes glow at him in the darkness that follows as the torches are snuffed out, electrical and flame, like they’ve sucked in all the remaining power from the room.  It’s hideously frightening to behold but Dean stands his ground...well, sits it anyway.

“You have made peace with your loved ones?” It gravels at him and the deepness of it surprises Dean even though he’s heard it before.  The shrieking chill still rockets up his spine, tingling at the back of his neck like there’s cold air being blown continuously on that same spot.

More lightning.  More booming that makes his ears ache and his feet rattle against the concrete floor and dust smother the room.  He imagines shadows, growing and twisting and vile, stretching over the scarred walls across the room.  Then another flash and he knows it’s not his mind playing tricks, it’s the grotesque reflection of the appendages that marr all angels.  The shadow is pitch and abyssal, absolute like the night sky when the stars have fled.

He hears vague shouting, distantly.  And manages to nod his heavy head with the reminder of his duty.

“Then we should not dally longer.”  It’s eyes flicker around carefully, cataloguing, checking and rechecking, as if it’s worried.  It stalks forward, steps smooth and measured.

The brand pangs woefully on his chest as it comes closer, all the way through the muscle and to his core, aching inside and out.  And when it grasps his shoulder, palm fitting snugly into the imprint there - feeling like possession and force - it  _burns_.  His eyes prickle and his stomach churns at the intensity of it, the heat like a volcano erupting and spitting hellfire onto his flesh where it melts and tangles and sinks in.  Singes and he isn’t sure that the smell is entirely in his head - ozone and acid and a freshness that makes his airway and brain throb with the scouring cleanliness of it.

He sees blue before he blacks out.  Blue and calm and  _power_ that makes him fleetingly remember why the angels won the war.  Then he’s lost to the darkness.

*    *    *

 

His first thought, once he's taken a cursory, blurred look around and realised where he is, is that there are no birds chirruping and that everything is unnervingly still.  The silence puts him on edge immediately and he wishes he could feel the familiar weight of his knife in his boot.

The landscape rolls lazily away from him in every direction.  The canopy of leaves that closes over his head is so high up and the slender tree trunks so far apart - all of them such a pale golden-brown they look ashen, dappled darker here and there by sunspots of glorious shading that glints mischievously in the sun - it feels more as if he were in an open meadow than a forest.  The light pierces bright and alive through the dark emerald of the foliage, refracting and speckling the ground like fireflies swarming.

Some places, like where he's laying now, are sand.  The fine kind of sand that is pure white and too perfect to exist.  Others there is a carpet of thick, luscious grass as tall as his knees, taller maybe, which sways delicately even though over here where he is there isn't a flicker of a breeze.  And off to his right, pebbles reminiscent of the deepest oceans glimmer quietly into the distance.  He thinks they might grow in size until they're boulder large and climbable but he isn't sure whether that's an optical illusion.  His eyes are burning slightly so it might well be.  And sitting up is making his head rush like a bitch.

Any second he expects rainbow-farting unicorns ridden by pixies to come galloping merrily from the trees and that thought allows him a moment of calmness.  His lips almost turn up.  Almost.  

Then he remembers he's dead.  That an angel fucking stole him and killed him.

And the stillness makes his teeth grind.

It's a gut feeling that alerts him to a presence lingering behind him.  He tries to ignore the way his shoulders twitch at the thought of having an enemy at his back, of being so vulnerable.

"This is Heaven?" He asks mildly, pretending disinterest, glancing around again, feigning an unimpressed nonchalance he feels just about as far from as a man can get.  He twists around so he can study the face his murderer has chosen to wear.  It pisses him off that it’s higher than him - standing meditatively on a low slope where sand thins and fades seamlessly to a honey coloured grass.

"No," it shakes its head, shaggy hair ruffling.  The tiny movement creates ripples on the air and Dean feels them caress across his cheek.  "This is Eden.  I cannot take you there."

"What? Why not?  I'm not good enough?" Dean snarls before he can stop himself.  His nails bite into his palm and he tries to remember that he needs to gather information, not antagonise the enemy.  For now.  What the friggin’ hell do you do once you’ve died anyway?

"Of course you are."  It frowns, like Dean has said something immeasurably stupid.  Its eyes are crystal and focus as it stares at him, seeing something Dean's eyes can't.  "Your soul is bright and pure."  If that doesn't bring a blush to Dean's cheeks then nothing will, he feels the heat staining them even though the actual compliment has no meaning to him beyond vague positivity.  "Only souls go to Heaven.

It nods decisively, like that's the end of the conversation and it has explained everything perfectly.  

"Wow, wait, hang on a damn minute!"  He surges to his feet, grasping at empty space for something to hold onto when everything inside him quivers jerkily at the action.  God, dying is one painful son of a bitch when you wake up in the morning.  "What do you mean?  What the hell's going on here?"

"Only souls and angels may enter through the gates of Heaven," it murmurs, the noise so low it might be more apt to describe it as pure vibration than words.  Somehow Dean manages to unscramble what it's growling anyway.  "Since you are not only a soul, you may not go there."  There's no inflection in his voice that clues Dean in to which part of that statement is the most important.  But he can make a fair guess as to what's being hinted at.

"So you're sayin' I'm more'an a soul?" He slurs, the blood surging through his system and away from his head making him dizzy.  "You're sayin'..."  That's as far as he gets before this new world begins to tilt.  But he is caught by warmth and strength and lowered gently to the ground.  He doesn’t even have the strength the feel a sting to his pride.

"You're still alive, Dean," the thunder whispers into his ear secretively.  His muscles spasm at the mention of his name.  It's the first time he's heard it coming from this voice and the rich bass breathes is softly through the hair at his temple like it's precious.  

Oblivion swallows and clutches at him again before he can ponder on it.

 

*    *    *

 

Dean has no way of knowing for sure how much time passes.  The weather never changes and the sun is always high, even though it's never hot.  He sweats because he's always moving - because there's nothing else to do in this fucking place - but he doesn't smell.  Or, at least, he doesn't think he does.  Sometimes he doesn't smell anything though, like someone forgot scents when they were playing around creating this world.  And sometimes he'll walk past a little flower on the ground and he'll almost trip over because the sweetness of it hits him like a freight train.

So, no way of knowing how long he's alone here.  But time has passed and he's been awake for a while - aimlessly wandering between tree trunks and searching for aimless shit just so he'll have milestones and something to occupy himself with.  He's found a tree shaped like a dancing dragon and a cave that ends with a glowing purple crystal maze - the darkness is refreshing.

He's exploring a wheat field - golden all the way to the horizon - when the angel comes back.  Well, exploring might be the wrong word, he's more settling himself in to enjoy the tickling feeling the individual blades cause when they brush his skin.  He misses touch.  It's not the same to place your fingers against the dirt as it is for a third party to actively touch you of their own volition.  He can't feel the breeze here either - maybe he's only half in this dimension or some other philosophical bull - but the wheat swirls above his head where he's reclined.

"Why you keeping me here?"  He asks before the angel can get a word in.  It's so silent here that he doesn't need to look to know it's there.  He sometimes sings at the top of his lungs - out of tune and with the wrong words - just because he can.  Okay he's lonely, so sue him.  And he wonders absently if the angel is breathing purposefully to alert him.  He heard somewhere they don't actually need to to survive.  Maybe it's a habit they pick up off their...travel buddies.

"We need to wait," it murmurs, staring over him at something in the far distance.

"Not the right time to gank me?"  Dean asks as calmly as he can, hauling himself up onto his ass so he isn't so prone on the dusty ground.

"It doesn't technically say I need to kill you; the interpretation of 'taking' has just always been perceived that way.  No, I'll return you back to your home.  But not yet."

"Why the hell not?  Now seems like a frigging perfect time to me."  He stumbles to his feet.  At least he's taller than the poor bastard imprisoned in his own body. Although rationally he knows that isn't going to help him one lick.  He'd be dead - for real this time - before he could even throw a punch.

"We must wait until the lunar cycle has closed."  Because that's a perfectly normal thing to say standing in the middle of a wheat field in the garden of Eden.

"You mean until all the other Sacrifices are dead."

"Unfortunately, yes.  The host will know you're still alive if I return you now.  You would prefer open war with your soul as the prize rather than waste a few days here?"

"Days!  It's weeks until the month is out!  You know the kind of trouble Sammy could be getting into in that time?"

"Your brother is fine, Dean.  The supernatural do not like to be viewed by angel eyes.  Especially demons.  They will be in hibernation until the crescent of the next moon waxes.  Besides, time flows differently in the different plains."

"So it's not just us that think you're scary mother-fuckers then."  He growls, glossing over the temporous physics of his location.  It's a statement but conversation has never been Dean's strong suit.  He's just confirming what his conversation with the crossroads demon told him. God, that feels like it was forever ago.

"Angels were created by the Lord to patrol his creations and police evil; of course they fear us."

"Not everything on Earth is evil."

"Of course not."

"Then why is everything terrified of you?  And why the hell did you kill half of us off?"

"Not everything."  Its eyebrows furrow in consternation.  "I often wander to the wilderness and converse with the birds."

"So basically, sentience is evil then."

"It takes only one infected branch for the tree to fall."

"Well I ain't infected.  Humanity didn't need you to interfere!"  Dean's breathing is coming hard and fast.  The angel bows its head as if it completely agrees, but continues arguing because that's what’s been hard-wired into its skull.

"We were ordered to descend and halt your obviously impending destruction."  It means humans in general but the heat behind it sounds accusatory and aimed straight at Dean.  He swallows, hating the way electricity prickles at his skin with the angel's anger.

"And you don't have the free will to choose for yourself whether that was the right thing or not?"  Dean lets loose an ugly cackle, face twisted into a sneer.  It smooths out at the awkward silence that falls over the immediate vicinity.

"You will wait until I come for you.  I will return you to Earth and we need never interact again."  Its teeth flash at him furiously.  Dean thinks he's stepped on a particularly volatile landmine because touchy much?

"And how long will that be?"  Dean demands, not cowed in the least by its snarling mouth and twitching jaw.  It's good to know they aren't totally emotionless.  He can use that later.  Anger is unpredictable and explosive.  But it also means mistakes are a near certainty.

"You have no way of counting, why should it matter to you."  And Dean knows that that's its childish way of getting him back before it ceases to exist in this world again.

 

*    *    *

 

The next time he sees it, he's in the middle of trying to climb one of the smooth, hold-less trees to no avail.  It swoops in from nothingness and drags him from his position - one legs raised like a dog ready to piss - by his collar.  He protests, loudly, but it doesn't seem to hear him, instead increasing its pace towards the giant pebbles Dean has, by now, explored to dullness.

"Balthazar searches for me.  He will come here."  It deposits him harshly and carelessly between two of the giant stones, both a polished, marbled lavender.  Most unnatural.  It doesn't even compute that it has just identified another of its kind.  With pinpoint accuracy.  I.e. a fucking  _name_.  What?  "Hide!"  It spits impatiently at him and shoves at his greasy hair.  Dean slips down between the stones with little effort - they're so shiny smooth it's like they're coated in oil.  His ass hurts when he lands on his tailbone though.  But no sooner than he hits the floor - whine of discomfort absolutely make believe - another voice joins them.

"Cassie, thought I'd find you here."  It sounds happy and relieved and about as smarmy and slick as the boulders.

"You were looking for me?"  Dean's angel asks and it's so innocent Dean wonders if that's a sin.  An angel being able to lie that convincingly and sound that truthful when he's guilty as fuck.  Dean sees blue eyes staring at him in his mind's eye and thinks this one could start the apocalypse again and no one would think it was him.

"You know I was.  So is Anna and the rest.  There's been talk."  Dean can't see what they're doing but their voices drop like they think they could be overheard even though they're in the middle of sodding nowhere.  "Since...well, you know...the host has been mistrustful.  They think you're up to something."

"I'm looking for him.  Trust me.  He can't have gone far.  Maybe this is one of Crowley's practical jokes."

"You know as well as I do he isn't leaving his furnace until after we've finished our business.  Find him, Cassie, or someone more frightening than me is going to come asking questions."

Dean hears that rustling he'd missed earlier this time and he knows it's safe to reappear.  Something serious he's totally missing is going on here and he doesn't like not being in the know.  But instead of addressing it head on, he glosses over it and tries to make light of the situation.

"Cassie?  Isn't that a girls name?"  Dean jokes.  It's the first time he's tried to be playful with his captor.  But, as much as he'd like to think he's coping well, he misses companionship.  Even violent arguments would be preferable to this God-forsaken fucking silence.  So, he despises himself for the weakness but, he doesn't want it to leave him alone in this wilderness just yet.

Dean tells himself it's so he can gain more intel.  It's really because he's lonely as fuck.

"I am neither male nor female, Dean," it says back more seriously than he thought it would.  "But as this vessel is male, I would not condemn you for thinking Balthazar's nickname humourous."

"So you really are an 'it'?"  He can't believe he's been calling it that in his head all this time thinking he was being spiteful when actually it's the truth.

"At the present time, I would classify myself as male but that has more to do with Jimmy Novak's physical state than my own mental one."  And what the flying fuck?

"Jimmy Novak?  That the guy you're hitchhiking on?"  Of course that doesn't really need answering though, it's fairly obvious.  And Dean thinks all the points the angel's won in his favour evaporate immediately.

"Jimmy is a devout man.  He actually prayed for this.  Despite what you think of my kind, there are those who still believe the word of God is absolute."

"And he didn't think better of that when you, oh I dunno, soul-raped him and used his hands to murder innocents?"

"I cannot and would not lie to him, Dean.  Once I had explained our cause, he was happy to give himself over freely."  There's an innuendo in there, Dean's sure of it, but he can't quite bring himself to point it out to someone who won't appreciate it.  Not for the first time, he wishes Sam were here.  Dean can feel the conversation running back into dangerous territory and as much as he's confident that a) he can hold his ground in a verbal fight and b) it won't  _actually_ kill him accidentally, Dean's much more comfortable with where the conversation is at now.  So he moves it one instead.

"So.  Nickname?"  He asks, bluntly ignoring the danger zone.  "What's your real name then?"

"Castiel."  I has a weird accent he wouldn't have expected and he'd forgotten how deep that voice could go.  It echoes out across the sparse, rocky landscape, buffeting around in the canyon behind Dean.  And though he knows this isn't really what it looks like, it suits him.  The scruff and the tax accountant style.  The trenchcoat which he hadn't noticed mildly annoys him until now.

"And him?"  Dean nods out into the open air.

"Balthazar.  My old friend.  A garrison brother."  Dean latches on to which order he chose to title him.

"I didn't know you had names.  None of us did," Dean confesses after a moment of chewing on his lip.  It's stupid that such an insignificant thing can have so much weight.  So what if angels have names.  Who gives a shit?

"Why should we not?  We are sentient and intelligent and have individual identities.  Why should our Lord not grant us with names when he moulds us with His hands, just as He does you?"

"My mother named me," Dean snarks - but there's more playfulness to it than he'd care to admit.  The angel, Castiel, gazes at him with his eerily bright eyes for long seconds, like Dean is being thick again and he's waiting for him to cotton on and come to his senses.  Dean isn't sure what he's said that's so pigheaded but eventually it gives up and turns away from him.

"Wow!  Wait!"  Dean yells at his back, loud even though the angel's less than three feet away.  These bastards pop in and out like bad smells and he's not going to miss him.  Castiel - it's strange to put a name to a face he didn't think had one - glances back, pausing.  "You got somewhere you need to be?"  He makes sure it isn't tentative and vulnerable, but not spanish inquisition forceful either.

"Not particularly.  Although my absence will be noted I can excuse it easily.  Perhaps I'm searching for you."  The quirk of one side of his face tells Dean that's meant to be a joke and mother of fucking sin, someone shoot him before  _that_ gets endearing.

"You, uh," God this is difficult," wanna hang out?"  Dean didn't know angels could smile, even small ones.

Castiel takes him down into the canyon and Dean follows him along a rampaging river that glows with a greenish tinge like it's been contaminated by radioactive matter.  He's glad there's something around this place that actually moves like it should though.  Or he thinks that until they come to a waterfall...that surges upwards.

They squeeze behind it through the mouth in the violet rock face and Dean recognises the crystal maze again, but here they're all glistening blindingly white and sunshine yellow.  He tries not to warm to the other being beside him.  But it's difficult when they're making you laugh with their expression alone every five seconds.  

By the time he's left on his own again, napping in his little indent in the wheat field, he thinks maybe this one angel might not be so bad.  You know, if you forget the murder and man-knapping.

 

*    *    *

 

They're interrupted not long after that by another visitor.  This time they're in the maze.  Dean likes it here.  Especially the dark colouring that pulses from the first entrance he'd found.  He likes the calm shadow of it and the fact that it isn't open.  So much of this place is made up of fields and woodland that towers so high it barely exists in his conscious thoughts.  But here the ceiling is low and the crystals crowd in.  They allow privacy and safety.  He might have to rethink that analysis when Castiel shoves him to the side and he falls inches from a sharp blade of pearly amethyst meeting his organs intimately.

"Castiel?"  A female voice echoes seconds later, twisting through the caverns like flowing water and silk.

"Here, Anna," Castiel replies, but it's a null action because she must know exactly where he is.

"I thought I'd find you here."  Dean wonders immediately that if all the fucking angels in existence know this is Castiel's little hidey-hole, then why haven't they come looking for  _him_ here yet.  Because angels don't suspect other angels, his mind supplies snarkily.  "This section of the Garden has always provided you solitude when you have something on your mind."  Dean catches her smile bouncing around the crystal faces.  He tenses every joint, every muscle, of his body when he realised a single movement could give away his position through the mirroring.  And section?  How big is this wasteland anyway?

"I was reflecting on my situation.  I shall resume my search for my Sacrifice momentarily."

"Castiel," the she-witch murmurs like it pains her to see him in this position.  Dean knows from her tone that she, at least, is aware of his lies.  There's sympathy in her voice and, when Dean searches, her eyes glitter around the cave with it.  

"Anna."  He's daring her, Dean realises.  Daring her to call him out on his game.  Daring her to get involved.  There's a shuffling like feathers itching together and the crystals dim with that small hint of her strength.

“Castiel," she states, emotionless.  And this is no longer a friend, but an employer, someone in control.  "This human has corrupted you. Sins poison your Grace. I strongly suggest you destroy it now before it damages you any further.”  Her pale eyes pierce into Dean when she turns to stare at him.

"Sins?"  Castiel rumbles and the shards above them quake.

"You have willfully disobeyed the host, Castiel."  She takes even, measured steps that bring her closer to Dean.  They're all aware he's hiding down here and he isn't sure why he doesn't move.  Probably because running isn't going to save him now.  If this bitch is going to gank him, he's going to stand up when the time comes and face it like a God damn man.  But she twirls to face Castiel, her hair dancing like fire on ocean waves.  "Michael will not tolerate it."  The cavern grumbles forebodingly and discontentedly at the name.

"He is my Sacrifice, Anna," Castiel declares icily, his face set cold like rock and body tensed for action. "I shall do with him as I please."  

The shadow of wings, darker than the natural dim glows of the cave, whisper along the walls and a high, biting whistle rings clear and painful through the air as Anna aborts a furious leap forward, catching herself in time.  When he climbs to his feet, braced for some form of impact, Dean can see her mouth is quivering because her lips are so tightly pressed together.

"You would do this?"

"He is  _mine._ "  

The crystals murmur amongst themselves, tittering and jangling together  The ringing squeals higher and encourages them, shrill and penetrating in Dean's eardrums like the tip of a knife is being twisted there.

"I cannot lie to the archangels for you, Castiel.  Zachariah will be sent for this betrayal."  She glares hatefully at Dean, hesitates and strides to Castiel.  Her hand falls heavily to his shoulder.  "Good luck," she whispers nervously, like she's tainting her own wings with the well wishing.  She probably is.  Then she's gone.

"You should be grateful," Castiel says into the gloom once the ringing has died down and the crystals have quitened.  They brighten again now the threat has swept from the cavern.  And they are alone again.  The two of them in this barren world.

"I am."

"You should say 'thank you'."  There’s a wall between them now, thick and uncrossable to Dean.  It isn’t like they’re friends but there might be side effects to spending so much time with only one other living thing.  And now that he’s closed off and unreachable, Dean is immediately starting to miss his company.

"Why?"

"Never mind."  There’s the lock clanging shut and some serious damage control needs to be done here.  He sure as hell isn’t going to apologise when he’s the innocent bystander in all this but he knows when to change topic when it whacks him between the eyes.

"Why is there only sun here?  The weather never changes."  The abruptness of it jolts Castiel slightly, his eyes dart in Dean’s direction but there is no other reaction other than for him to start walking in the opposite direction.  Watching his back is oddly painful.

"Would you prefer I gave you perpetual rain and you were sodden for the entirety of your stay?"  He sounds like he’s actually considering it.

"No."

"Then you should say 'thank you.'”  And there he goes again.  But Dean jams the metaphorical steering wheel hard right and they’re back to the abstractly interesting.

"You can control the weather?"

"Among other things."

"Can you make it storm?"

"Why would I do that?"  His curiosity is making him stretch from the annoyed shell he's cocooned himself inside.  Dean thanks his lucky stars he's had a younger brother to annoy his whole life.  He's pretty darn good at it by now.

"Just for a change.  Wouldn't mind feeling a bit of rain."  

"I could.  If I wanted to."

"Why was the Garden created."

"For Adam and for Eve."  And okay, Dean's not on the ball here because, duh.

"Yeah but, why does it still exist."

"We, the angels, use it as a meeting place now.  I find it relaxing."  

"Home?"

"No.  Anywhere is home for an angel as long as our Father is beside us.  We have no need for a physical home."  They’ve reached the opening to the cave by this point.  The sun is so light it blinds him for a minute and he slams them shut.  When he’s brave enough to peek out again he thinks momentarily that Castiel has gone, taken his moment of weakness and used it to his advantage as an escape route.  

"But what about all your stuff?"  He asks the empty air, only half concentrating on their conversation.

"My stuff?"  Shit, that makes him jump.  Castiel is lingering behind him, half way up the boulders that make the crevice where the cave lives.

"Yeah, your, ya'know, stuff.  You've been alive a while, right?  Surely you've got some stuff by now."  Understatement.  He’s a frickin’ angel, he’s probably been alive since, well, for fucking ever and not in an exaggerated way.

"We do not place such sentimental value on objects as humans.  I considered taking a stone once, from beneath the Burning Bush once it had settled but felt I would defile the land by doing so."  Dean decides they have different values at that point.

"Can we go see the tree?  You know, the apple one."  He didn't really need to clarify but now he's got Castiel creeping from his shell he doesn't want him receding again because of dry, uninteresting conversation.

"The tree is no longer here.  Our Father's grief at man's failure, the ease at which you were seduced," - and there's that 'you' again, bitchy little shit - "caused the tree to wither.  Lucifer stole away with it when he descended to the pit."

"Oh."  He’s jumping from boulder to boulder, trying not to slip on the smooth surface.  He struggles and pants and wishes he were younger.  Somehow Castiel is always ahead of him, calm and collected and waiting, no matter how quickly he thinks he’s going.  "About that storm then?"  He says, cutting off the blanketing awkwardness at the pass.

He’s rewarded with both the ‘you’re an idiot, human’ signature he associates with only Castiel and a frosty, but melting, curve of soft lips.  It’s barely there, the smile, but it can be done and it gives Dean hope for the future.  Although why he wants to make an angel smile is anyone’s guess.  Sam’ll take the piss if he ever sees him again.  

The sun is already being drowned by thick cloud as dark as night when he catches up to Castiel.  The canyon is neverending below them.  Dean’s glad he’s not scared of heights but a survival instinct in his gut makes him step back from the precipice.  The first few droplets of rain are cool against his skin, washing at the grime he’s managed to amass there.

“Who’s Zachariah?”  He asks eventually, when the spitting has turned to a mild downpour and his hair is plastered to his face.  It hasn’t taken long.  He half expected it to be bright green like the river but it’s as clear as rain on Earth, fresh and pure.  

It smells too, which is a gift in itself.  He’s grown used to the faint whiff of ozone whenever Castiel is near now but this smells like Spring and life.  It must look magnificent from between the trees which lay across from them, rocketing through the canopy, dragging spits of leaf along with it, raining confetti and water on the dry ground.  And from the wheat field - a golden blur far off in the distance even from this height - weighted down and springing with renewal.  

But from here, he’ll settle for watching it here too.  The colours are bright around him, glowing with the storm that’s rising, even though the sun is hidden.  The stone below his feet glistens wetly back at him, a luminous purple so deep it’s almost black.  And he can see the river angrily raging far below him, expanding over the banks they had ambled along...whenever they ambled along them. 

“He is somewhat of an executioner.  Although he has not been needed to end another angels existence for several millennia.”

“So, he’s coming for us?”  Dean asks through the pelting rain that soaks through his threadbare jeans and into his shoes and makes his eyelids ache against the force.  

“No.  He’s coming for me,” Castiel replies, glancing up at the sky through the obscuring sheet of water.  He’s not even damp.

“Not me?”  Dean says, foolishly hopeful.  

“Not yet.”

“They’ll have other plans for me, won’t they.”

Castiel nods absently, eyes gleaming when lighting lashes through the heavens, spiking dangerously close to them.  He looks alive with anger in its wake.  “Zachariah will think you beneath him.  But tomorrow for you marks the last day of the moon’s cycle for your brother.  You’ll be safe to return then.  They won’t be able to track you.”

Dean doesn’t ask about him, doesn’t ask what will happen to him, how he’ll be punished - he can guess that one pretty well.  He doesn’t say sorry or apologise in any way.  But he does comply with one last request that Castiel has made of him.

"Hey, Cas,” he murmurs as he wipes a coating of dirty water from his forehead.  “Thanks."

 

*    *    *

 

Dean is meditatively digging a hole into the soft earth of his wheat field - give him a break, there aren't even any insects to race and he's bored - when Cas next barrels into existence.  Despite the urgency of the entry, he manages to get out a quick, "What's up, doc," before he's being heaved to his feet by angel strength.  The pang of seared flesh on his shoulder whenever Cas touches it got old ages ago.

"We need to leave.  Now."  It's strange to see him uneasy.  Even with Anna prowling around in an enclosed cave threateningly, he was as calm and collected as usual.  He doesn't show it like a human would, in fact it's a little disconcerting how he's missing the appropriate mannerisms: wildly gesticulating hands and twitching limbs, feet like magnets on the same poles.  

Nope, Cas' got none of that.  But he is manhandling Dean a metre at a time across the field, heading for the relative shelter of the canopy wood and his voice is deeper than it normally would be.  

"What? 'Nother one of your buddies coming to say hi?"  Dean asks, playing it cool, going for casual, because they've been found out by Cas' boss, surely he's just overreacting here.

"The moon has turned in your dimension by two hours and it's entirely possible I've been followed here." Yeah, well, duh.  "We need to go, although with the time constraint I can't predict where we'll land."  Because that's not unsettling at all.

"Can't you just hide me while they whistle on through?  Concentrate on where your mojo's taking us later."  Because he figures popping off to Earth on your own wings must be a pretty everyday occurrence but taking a passenger along for the ride must take a bit more thought.

"I can hide your presence from Balthazar, maybe even Anna for a time-"

"Yeah, 'cos that went so well last time," Dean interrupts sarcastically.

"But not Michael."  And that name rings a hideously loud bell.  It would in any human's head.  But he's only known for being the leader of the fucking Apocalypse on Earth, no biggie or anything.  But still, it could be worse, right?

"Michael, as in the Michael," he says, to clarify.  "Why would he come all the way here just for you?  It's not like you flouted a commandment or something."  That gets him a particularly arm wrenching yank across the treeline, which, ouch.

"I disobeyed him, Dean,"  Castiel grinds out, dropping his palm from Dean's shoulder as if stung.  Dean reals back a little at the force of it.  The trees around them shiver and the dirt under their feet quivers.

"Yeah, but he's Michael the Merciful for a reason, right?  He let that leader guy go, you know, during the war," Dean says because Cas is being melodramatic but in there somewhere he's starting to look for reassurance that, seriously, this is no big deal, just the same as before, right?  

"Does that sound like something an angel would do, Dean?"  It's blunt and flat and that's when Dean knows they're getting into deeper shit.  Literally, worlds of shit.

"Well, we just all assumed dude had run off to hide somewhere after his performance," he murmurs, eyes sweeping the forest for movement because he isn't sure of his conviction from seconds ago.  It's silly how a moment can turn like that.

"And he did, for five years.  Until Michael chose him as the first Sacrifice and slaughtered him where he slept."  Well, yeah, that friggin sucks.  So, what Cas has been trying to tell him and Dean has resolutely been ignoring, is that this shit just got real and they should have been out of here, like, ten minutes ago.  "We're dallying.  We  _must_ leave now."  No shit, Sherlock.

"So, let's go!"  Dean barks, aiming for commanding but he thinks it sounds more agitated like he's falling apart at the seams because they've come this far and exactly what he doesn't need is an archangel coming for his ass.

Dean doesn't remember much about how he got here.  All he knows is that it fucking hurt.  Hurt like nothing he's ever had before, which is saying something because monsters and demons can fight tooth, nail and claw for what they want.  But this is a different pain, the kind that’s deep enough to pierce into your subconscious and your dreams, the kind that starts off at the point of contact and worms its way deeper and deeper, burrowing under his skin until it's chattering along his veins and jarring violently along his bones.  The kind that throbs and twists and burns beneath his skin - not a surface wound - and won't leave him alone because he'll remember the way his teeth nearly chip with the effort of staying conscious through it.  He can reflect on it now but he refuses to shy away from what's coming.

Cas still hovers his hand hesitantly above his own personal branding on Dean's skin waiting for permission, even though they're in one hell of a rush and his eyes are darting everywhere despite the fact he won't need them to tell if another angel's burst into the vicinity.  

"You don't know where we'll end up?"  Dean asks milliseconds before Cas' hand descends steadily onto his shirt.

"I'm aiming for your continent," is his answer before there's pain that makes his eardrums burst and his vision near blindingly bright.  It's just like he'd thought it would be but the short time between has dampened it extensively.  He'd forgotten how it didn't stay local, but rockets through his whole body, blundering around in his skull heavily and making his toes tense enough to break.  His fingers clasp onto the nearest solid security, which happens to be Castiel’s shoulder, the juncture at his neck.

They're just in time, too.  Dean sees him, partially, over Cas' shoulder just before the whitening landscape vanishes to consuming darkness.  He's stone and ice.  And the splintering wood behind him is evidence of his displeasure.

They land, Dean barely on his feet, staggering.  He heaves a gulp of air into his lungs with relief when the weight on his shoulder lifts, spins away, desperate for some semblance of personal space.  His skin feels tight and too small to contain him and what he really wants to do is itch half his god damned arm off.  But he makes himself still, refuses to fidget under the stare he can feel on the back of his neck.

There's brick dust swirling and the air is muggy and oppressive.  Through the haze, Dean can see the wide emptiness of what used to be a main road.  A maze of crumbling walls, disjointed and skeletal, sprawls on either side of the street.  It's close to how he vaguely remembers the apocalypse was like but with less blood - barren and lifeless.  There's a chipped bar sign squeaking on its hinges above his head and the small noise into the quiet makes him uneasy.  He still won't let his feet shuffle.

"You know where we are?"  He murmurs, trying not to be too loud because that feels wrong and because there must be ghosts or reapers or fucking something lingering here that he shouldn't be disturbing.  And now the moon's over they'll probably start venturing out again soon, hungry.

"Less than a day's walk from your brother's current location," he says, peering around and sounding surprised at his own abilities.  Dean was only away from this world, his world, for a few days but already it seems out of place to see Cas' formal, ugly trench coat actually flapping in the intermittent gusts of wind.  He doesn't expect it when the same breeze hits his face, making him suddenly all too aware that he wreaks and the sweat is freezing and stiff on his skin.  His clothes stick uncomfortably to him and he thinks at that moment he'd probably barter his soul for a mildly warm shower.  Meanwhile, Cas tilts his head thoughtfully and continues, "You should go that way."

"You know where he is?"

"His brand signals only the angel it was meant for.  Even Michael can't override that, especially now the truce contract binds him again.  Keep walking east along this road until you reach a fork in the road.  Follow left into the desert.  You'll come to a bar before sundown.  You'll find your brother there."

"You're not tagging along?"  Dean asks, going for nonchalance but really Cas is the only protection - okay, fuck it, they're verging on a tentative friendship and who is he kidding - he's got in a world crawling with monsters and demons and angels alike.  He glances at him over his shoulder but Castiel is staring off into the distance like there's something deathly important out there waiting for him.  Possible really, he is an angel, even if he’s wanted.  There must be holy stuff that needs doing, souls that need guiding and all the bull.

"I would not be welcome where you travel, Dean."  That one last emphasis on his name, the one that makes a tingle settle at the base of his spine, fuck off, is all he gets as a goodbye.  There's the rustle of what he's now entirely convinced are Cas' wings - because he's been carried across dimensions by them now and that's pretty fucking real - and then he's just not there anymore.  It's always the same, same sounds and suddenness, but this is the first time Dean's felt a sense of loss when an angel hightails it out of dodge.

After that, there isn't really much he can do but trust that Cas has pointed him in the right direction.  It's not like this can be some elaborate scheme to gain his trust, what would be the point in that?  There aren't any trade secrets for him to know and share with the class.  And if he was going to be murdered in cold blood, Cas could've done it any time while they were wandering along a fucking backwards river or climbing over rainbow rocks or even with a bolt of lightning, he wouldn't need to wait until they were back on Earth.  Or, more specifically, he was back on Earth because he's standing in the middle of a dirt road, a chilled early morning judging by the licks of orange still on the horizon, and he's very much alone.  He shouldn't feel so lost at that.  He'd never admit it out loud but there's been a companionship and safety in numbers recently, either with Sam or Cas, and now he misses it, feels vulnerable.  Even when Castiel disappeared - although, looking back, he was probably only gone for an hour or so at a time in his body clock's language, which, what the fuck? - there was always the knowledge that he would be back.  Since when did Dean trust an angel like that?  And where did that belief that Castiel had some sense of duty towards keeping him safe come from?  In fact, it would have been the perfect ploy, sadistic and pointless maybe but still, to break him.  Just abandon him in Eden.

So, he starts walking with a resolutely steady pace and a back military straight.  He has nothing, not even water, so he keeps an eye open for any actual buildings that aren't totally ground level.  Two hours later, when the thick dryness of thirst is just starting to pinch at the back of his tongue, he comes across a gas station.  One of the pumps is half missing and he can't read the shop's name through the coating of road dust and grit and age but the glass is still intact and he can see the shadows of shelves inside through the gloom.

The place has been ransacked before, most of it has been left empty.  But from the way everything's upturned and messed, Dean can tell whoever it was hauled ass quickly once they'd looted the place.  He finds two bottles of water wedged behind an overturned, lifeless fridge, and three packs of beef jerky and a couple of candy bars under the register.  There's still some hygiene stuff - apparently people on the run aren't too worried about appearance but Dean's had foot fungus before and no sir-e is he going there again if he can help it - and a tattered box of Ibuprofen - merciful miracles, there must be someone looking out for him if he's stumbling across meds - left at the back too.  He grabs the lot and inspects the plastic bags that are fluttering around in the breeze he's exposed them to.  Most of them are useless sheets of polythene but he manages to finds one with no rips and swipes his treasure into it before heading back out onto the road.

The landscape is a mucky green on all sides.  He left that shell of a town behind ages ago but now all he has for company is the vastness of a wilderness left untended and an exposed feeling that sinks in his gut and keeps him on edge.

One water bottle and five hours of flat out walking later and he decides he's glad they're in a state that's mostly flat.  He also realised he's more out of shape than he'd realised.  His thighs are burning and the soles of his feet are raw.  But the silver lining he forces himself to come up with as a game to pass the time says that he should be glad he hasn't taken that shower yet because now there's sweat plastering his threadbare shirt to his back and front and the wetness under his armpits is even more pungent than before.  And if those god damn flies land in the new wisps of a beard one more fucking time he swears he's going to start plucking and squishing until he gets every single one of the little bastards.

Goal.  Right, Dean, focus.  Fork in the road.  Sammy.

He walks along beside a river for a while.  Well, it's wide enough that it must once have been a river, gushing along the grasslands and flourishing, but now it's little more than a trickle at the centre over worn pebbles and sediment.  He stops to wash himself in it anyway, scrub at his hair and torso with the soap he's got stashed in his bag.  It's hot enough that he doesn't bother putting his shirt back on, it's worth it even with the bug bites that follow in the humidity because even though he's used to grease and blood and dirt covering him as a depressingly often occurrence he's got limits, okay.

Some time after noon, he starts singing to himself.  It's just old rock hits he remembers all the words too but the land is open enough that he should be able to see any threat before it gets him - barring angels but if one comes for him he's pretty much minced meat anyway, so - and his voice is actually quite good company.  Offkey and smelling like desperation, but good company none the less.  Shit, he's already going insane.  He'll blame the heat, baking him.

Just when he thinks his legs are about to give out on him, he sees it.  By now, the road is little more than a dirt track with swamp and mud either side but he's definitely not imagining the fork in the distance.  Judging by the sun it must be two or three in the afternoon.  Not late but certainly noon is long gone.  He wasn't even gone that long but his concept of time has been blurred and now being able to look up and estimate it is alien and uncomfortable.  He knows it felt like he was trapped there for weeks because there was no sunset, no night, so by default there were no days, where the concept of time is concerned anyway.  Sure, it was always light but there wasn't the timeframe of a day.  And he didn't need to sleep.  And he's always found the best time to bitchslap time into having a hissy fit is to be bored out of his skull, which he was whenever he was alone there.  Exploring gets old quickly once you've been over everything three times with a nose to the ground close sort of inspection.  So, yeah, now he can kind of see how he apparently wasn't there long but weeks have gone by here.

Freaky.

It makes him miss Cas' philosophic wonderings.  Maybe he's picked it up for himself in his absence.

He lets himself crumple to the floor when he hits the fork.  Just, right there, in the middle of the road.  He hasn't seen a single soul - human or otherwise - all day and, while that's unsettling, it also means he doesn't have to worry about being found or run over.  He tells himself he'll rest for half an hour tops as he sips at the water, preserving it for harsher times.  'Follow it left,' Cas'd said, but sunset is still a way away and he'll need the water if he's going on a desert trek.

He ends up snoozing for hours.

When he wakes, the horizon is starting to colour magnificently.  He ignores his trembling knees and takes the left, keeping his pace even and confident.  He's still got a good hour of daylight and flushing skies.  But then Cas didn't factor in his napcident so his timings are all probably shot to hell now.  There's an instant of panic when Dean realises Sam might have moved on before he can get there if that's true.  But Sam knows it's safest to travel by daylight so surely...

As the evening starts to chill he pulls on the rags of his shirt again.  The tepid air is making his muscles slow and the print on his shoulder is aching bone deep, tender.  He hopes that won't be a permanent fixture, it's annoying and he doesn't like having weak points.

The ‘bar’, as Cas had called it, is actually more of a rotting shack.  There’s an old sign that probably used to glow bright and attract passersby but now’s missing half of it’s letters.  H  ve l  ‘   Ro  h  se’ it proclaims miserably.  But if Sammy’s inside then this is the place for Dean.

He feels eyes on him when he takes the first step toward the front door.  But he can’t tell if it’s the ‘good folk, humans watching each others’ backs with a rifle’ feeling - which would be his choice if he had one - or whether it’s the ‘you’ve got an angel breathing down your neck and you’re fucked’ sort - which is, needless to say, bad.

He strides on anyway.  Not much else for it.  If he stands here he’s going to start over thinking shit and that never gets him anywhere good.

“Stop right there, young man,” a southern lady yells when he’s a couple of feet from the step, “or I’ll put a bullet through your balls.”  She sounds tough as nails; it’s more like a promise than a threat.  Dean would bet his boots she’s a hunter.

“I’m lookin’ for a certain someone,” he calls back, trying to be as un-antagonising as his long day and quick temper will allow right now.  There’s a tense, obvious silence where he’s meant to shove his name into the conversation politely.  But you don’t give your name to the faceless.  It gets you killed.  So Dean keeps his mouth shut.

“An’ who would that be, stranger?”  She shouts, some of the gruff gone from her voice.  Suspicious but a little more understanding; they’ve all lost someone.  He thinks she tacks on the new title to prove to him this isn’t her first rodeo and pulling a trigger isn’t going to phase her.

“Sam Winchester.  He around?”  He cracks the tension out of his neck and skirts his eyes around the perimeter before adding, “Name’s Dean.”  There is scrambling inside at that, the sound of chairs scraping violently across a hard floor and exclamations.

Pause.  God, his heart’s hammering up into his throat, waiting for the crack of cocking shotguns.  But none come.  Only the woman’s cautious call.  “No you ain’t, boy.  I been assured he’s good and dead.  Who are you really?  If you’re one of them, we ain’t going quietly.  I’ll get a shot or two in you before I go down.”

“I’m human!” Dean barks before he has time to think when she chooses this point to slide the barrel of her weapon through one of the smashed windows to his right.  He only spots it because everything else is so still, even the commotion inside has stopped.  He can’t see much of her, she’s keeping to the shadows, but what he can see is tight lips and a jaw set like stone.  “What do you want me to do?”  He recognises his situation.  They’re doing exactly what he’d be doing were their roles reversed.  So he knows his best chance is to be the submissive, give them whatever they want as proof of his mortality.

“You got taken by an angel over three weeks ago, that right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says back, respectfully.

“And you haven’t come back before now because?”

“Must have been my lucky day.  My get out of jail free card happened to fall from the sky.”  For fuck’s sake, this isn’t the way they should be doing this.  “But I can tell you all that went down later.  For now, how do you want me to prove who I am?”  He thinks he might have overstepped the mark for a second and his runner mouth is going to get him shot.  But then-

“Dean?”  Dear sweet  _Jesus_ , he recognises that voice!

“Sammy?  You alright?”  

There’s a cough and a splutter of laughter before, “Am  _I_ alright?  Are you kidding me?  I wasn’t the one snatched by a goddamned angel!  You!  How’re you?”

“Good, Sam.  I’m doing pretty damn fine.”

“Ellen,” Sam says, softer.  “Shouldn’t the mark be good enough?”  Then murmuring.

“Or,” Dean pipes up because he’s played respectful reticence for longer than his character will allow.  “I could tell them about that time in Piedmont North Dakota when you-”

“No!  Ellen, Jesus, say the mark’ll work!”  There’s more clambering inside and he even sees one of the thin curtains jostle.

“Yeah,” she replies, slowly and loud enough for Dean to hear it.  “I reckon that might do it.”

Dean’s fingers immediately scrabble at the tatters of his shirt sleeve and yank it back.  The breeze on the seared flesh makes it more sensitive than ever but he crushes the discomfort down and stares at that window resolutely.  

The door bangs open for the woman that steps out, shotgun tight to her shoulder and glued to his chest.  She’s their sort of woman.  The kind that wears dependable boots and a denim over shirt thick enough to hold out on the road.  Her eyes are keen too.  She’s not a newcomer, she’s been a hunter for a long time.

“Convinced?”  He questions for her ears only when she’s close enough.  She doesn’t even blink, slipping behind him like he hadn’t spoken.  But there’s no pressure on his back in that horrifyingly specific shape.  Just the feeling of eyes scrutinising the scorched red bubbles of the hand print.  And then, when she’s satisfied, edging around to inspect the black in under his collarbone.  

He hopes Cas is alright too, wherever he is.

“Your brother’s has mostly faded,” she grouches before striding purposefully back to the door, gun obvious against her thigh like she’s waiting for someone to challenge her authority.  

But then Sam’s in front of him and he’s got a faceful of water that makes his heart swell a little with pride and then they’re making awkward eyes everywhere but at each other.  Dean goes for a handshake and a pat on the shoulder and Sam interprets it as a resigned hug and goes in with more gusto.  They end up a mash of arms everywhere and bones cracking because their joints don’t bend that way and Sam’s shirt ends up the victim of holy water too but it’s close contact.  Physical fucking contact and it makes Dean remember he hasn’t touched another honest to God fucking human since...well a couple of days ago, and there he goes with the whole time maze thing again but still.

He didn’t realise he’d missed the light punches to his arm when he was doing something idiotic or made a shit joke.  Or the scruffing he used to give Sam’s hair when he was being bitchy because that was the most affectionately sarcastic thing he could do without making the situation worse with words.  He thinks he’ll have to start antagonising his brother a whole lot more in the future even if it’s just so he’ll receive angry swats his reflexes are too slow to move him away from in time.

So their reunion is more awkward than excited, and more ‘get off my fucking foot, moron’ than ‘I missed you’.  But it feels about right for them, comfortable, and Dean will take whatever fate’s willing to let slide.

Ellen Harvelle, when he meets her formally, is more like granite than nails.  He learns immediately, when he eyes the amber liquid resting innocently on a shelf behind her bar, that she doesn’t take crap from anyone and, ten minutes later when he accidentally flirts with her daughter Jo, that she can probably make a man infertile just with her glare.

He avoids storytime like the plague and instead blackmails Sam into showing him where he can wash up.  Down in the basement they’ve got storage but there’s also a tiny bathroom.  Sam sets a familiar colt on the toilet seat, pats it once when he catches Dean’s eye and leaves him to it without prompting.  Dean can’t help himself and has to stroke the ivory grip just once too before slinking under the water he expects to freeze his brains out.

Turns out living in the middle of a desert can be a godsend; there’s even hot water.  And he thinks he could have stood in that shower all night.

Unfortunately, fate has reached the limits of her patience with him and there’s a horrendously loud cracking from the main room.  It startles him out of his revere and he’s jerking his ragged jeans back on before he even finishes processing the situation.  It was loud enough that it couldn’t have been a bottle smashing.  Something bigger, threatening bad guy kind of big.

He claws his shirt over his wet torso, shaking the water from his head at the same time and is on the bottom step, colt a heavy, reassuring presence in his hand, in record time.  He would be worried about the squeaks and squeals the old, wooden floorboards make under his bare feet but the commotion upstairs is thunderous in the night, even over the blood pounding in his ears.

He slows slightly, caution licking at his senses, when he hits the ground floor.  There’s still another door to go through but his fingers itch as he racks the colt’s slide and, hey whatever, maybe he’s got some angel-vu going on, but he swears there’s some sense there telling him what’s on the other side of that wood.

_Angel_ it hisses in his ear, making his skin shiver and his mark cold and sounding strangely like Cas.  Cut the crap, not the time for sentiment, Dean.

There is light periodical sparking and flashing through the gaps in the door as he inches closer, trying to mentally prepare himself for the fucking suicide he’s about to commit ‘cos unless it’s Castiel gone skitzo there’s no way they’re facing down with an angel and getting out the other side all in one piece.

There’s an aborted wail as he cocks the hammer and that really seals the deal; he can’t just leave them.  But when he slams it open, everything is already eerily still.  Until.

“You must be Dean.”  Shit.

They’re at the musky bar.  And he’s got Sam bent over it, a gleaming silver knife to his throat that’s stopping any struggle.  There’s already a slim line of blood dripping from Sammy’s throat but Dean can’t tell if it’s his or dripping off the blade.  Jesus, it’s soaked in the stuff.  He forces himself not to look around and find out why.

“And you must be ugly.”  Because sarcasm is his default setting and villains seem to like his spunk.  But then again, that’s demons not angels.  They’re all twisted fuckers though so why should he play favourites, right?

“Do you really think we have time for games, Dean?  Michael isn’t very happy with you, you know.  Shouldn’t you be, say, running for your miserable life?”  His smile is predatory, displaying a lot of white teeth, and his eyes glint wickedly from the shadow of his lids.  

“If you are who I think you are, then I was informed you’d find my murder beneath you.”

“Absolutely correct, I do.  But when ones master asks something of one of his most loyal servants, one wings ones way to your rundown crust of a planet as fast as one can.”  Then comes the cruel smile again, forcefully bright.  “Besides, who said anything about murder?  Oh, no, Mr Winchester.  Michael has plans for you.”  Then his attention shifts and it’s like the most horrifying deja-vu Dean’s ever experienced.  His muscles practically petrify.  “And this one, here.  Sam’s important too.”

“Sam doesn’t know anything about this.  We’re just sacrifices for fuck’s sake.  We’re no different from the other thousands of son’s of bitches you kill every five years.”  Sam makes a fickle attempt at a struggle but his face is pushed into the dust of the bar and he ends up coughing up his lungs for his trouble.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.  You’re very special, Dean.  Both of you.”

He’s straightened up, leaving his prisoner to hack it out over the bar miserably.  Letting his guard down and Dean thumps the first shot straight between his eyes.  In fact, he hurtles every bullet he’s got at him even though he knows it won’t make a blind bit of difference.  He’s panting by the time he’s done, rage and a fear he hasn’t completely managed to stamp down rocketing adrenalin through his body.

_Close your eyes_ , the breeze whistles into his ear, deep and sure against his skin.  And what the fuck is wrong with him, Cas isn’t  _here_.  He isn’t going to get saved this time.  He’s going to die a horrible, gruesome death in the hopefully near future.   _Dean._   More stern.  Holy crap, though.  Once is imagination, two’s a coincidence but three?  Three’s the motherfuckering word of God!

“Sammy!  Shut your eyes!  Now!” He roars so powerfully his throat cracks with it and he thinks they probably hear over in the next state.  His own eyes are already clamped shut when it happens, the brightest light he’s ever seen, even through his eyelids, ploughs into him.  And it’s not just light, it’s noise as well - high and piercing and constant - and a foul wind that smacks into his face like a bomb going off.  And then there’s the heat, heavy and burning at his skin almost as much as the brand did but not as close.

There’s an angry rumble of  _“Castiel!”_ and then the room settles, thick with the memory.

“You can open your eyes now, Dean,” Cas murmurs, closer to Dean than he should have been but he doesn’t think he would’ve heard them otherwise.

“Why did shutting them he- _jesus fucking wept!_ ”  Pitch black blast marks like feathers and wings are all that’s left of Zachariah.  Dean can’t say he’s very sorry.  But utter amazement doesn’t leave much room for pity.

“An angel has never been killed before a human witness before.  We know our grace can blind you from our attacks in the war.  I was unsure as to whether leakage would cause the same problem.”

“You just killed an angel.”  Dean states, gob smacked straight out of him.  Castiel glances down at the silver blade in his palm, bloody and stained.

“Yes, Dean,” he replies seriously.

“You just  _killed_ an  _angel_.”  Dean says again because clearly Cas isn’t getting this.  

“Yes.”  He replies again, one irritated nod of his head.  “Dean.”

“But.  Well,” Dean flounders and catches Sam’s wide eyes from across the room where he’s already examining the floor, uncaring of the other angel in the room even though it tried to steal him in the night less than a month ago.  “You just killed an angel!”  His voice ratchets up a pitch.  

“As I have stated, several times, Dean,” Cas says, patience sinking into resignedness, “yes.  I just killed a brother.”

“And said ‘leakage’,” Dean adds, trying to stop his smile from swelling too far because this is too surreal to be true.  He’s died and this is his head or heaven or whatever.  He’s dead.

“It is the appropriate term,” Castiel husks, ruffled and a little insulted.

“But angels don’t die,” Sam finally says from the background, where he’s finally stood up and is cautiously backing up to the wall.  Fear never shows on his face though - that a boy, Sammy - and despite his hair being half streaked with dust and the blood running down his neck, or perhaps because of it, he looks every bit the hunter Dean raised him to be.  “We tried everything.  It’s all documented from back in the war.”  And there he is, book smart little genius.

“I assure you, we can.  Unfortunately for humanity, you lack the correct tools.”  Castiel glances down at the blade in his hand for a second before it disappears from sight completely and wow, what?  “An angel blade is not something a mortal man can create.”

And those odds aren’t something Dean can think about right now so, after reminding himself that Cas could stare meaningfully for a nation, he reverts back to what comes naturally.  

“Report!” He barks at Sam, watching as his brother ruffles the crud out of his floppy mop of hair.  What he’s really saying is ‘casualties?’ and ‘what are we responsible for this time?’ but they’ve learned from personal experience that distance is key.  So Dean orders Sam’s back straight and his brain to military precision like their Dad would have done.

“Ellen’s upstairs and Jo’s out back but everyone else…”  Sammy glances off to the side, to where an old boot is sticking out from behind the bar.  The whole room smells of burning rubber and damp, rotting leaves.

“We need to get in touch with Bobby,” Dean muses as he whisks past Cas, ignoring his presence for now because there’s no way he can compute what he’s just learned successfully.

“Bobby’s busy,” Sam says quietly, hesitantly.  

“Bobby sits at home cleaning rusty engines and waiting for his cell to ring.  I think he’s got time.”  The way Sam looks down at his feet and refuses to meet his gaze means something’s going on.  Something Sam doesn’t want him knowing about.

“Actually…”  The flush that spreads on his cheeks and neck screams guilty.  “Bobby’s kind of doing some recon at the moment.”  Sam snatches up an abandoned sawn off shotgun, probably for something to do with his hands, but the way he does it, like there isn’t a dead body two feet away from it and blood spatters on the handle, makes Dean wonder how much he’s missed.  How much has his Sammy gone through in the time he’s been gone?  How much has he grown up in those few short weeks?

“What do you mean?  Bobby never-”

“What have you boys gone and got yourselves muddled into?” Ellen interrupts him as she slams through a partially concealed door behind the bar.  She catalogues the body at her feet and the mess of the room, bows her head momentarily, then picks herself up and carries on.  Yeah, Dean was right, she’s a hunter through and through.  “ And who the hell is that?”  Her head jerks at Castiel violently.

“This is, er, my angel.”  Jesus  _Christ_ , what is wrong with him.  That’s not how you introduce an angel to a bunch of hunters.  Tact, Dean!  But Ellen just raises an eyebrow threateningly and waits.  Sammy’s clinging to the shotgun but then he already knows who Cas is.  Dean can see he’s about to pop his silencing lid though. “No, wait, that didn’t come out-”

“Dean is my human.”

“That isn’t any better, Cas.”

“So, wait.  You’re gone for, what?  Like three weeks?  And now suddenly you’re best bum buddies  _with an angel_?  Come  _on_ , Dean, wake up!”  And God damn, Dean’s missed the way his sasquatch expresses shit like that, you know, with  _feeling_ and all that bullcrap.  

“Now hang on a god damn second,” Dean deflects, faking anger and skirting around his own issues as best he can.  “What about Bobby?  Let’s not get off topic here.”  He tries to brush off the implication that he likes an angel, although to be fair it totally should be the topic of discussion because it’s ridiculous and suicidal and Dean must look like he’s been brain-washed.  But Cas is there and dependable and they could use a little help.

“He’s doing research, okay!  Now can we get back to your...relationship here?”

“ _God_ , Sammy.  We’re not making out behind the fucking bleachers!  Let it go!  We deserve a break, just accept one!”  Sammy’s not keen on his tone of voice because he huffs and puffs melodramatically before stomping to the windows at the front of the building.

Dean’s left standing there in middle of a mess of bodies, gun limp and useless at his side, no idea what to do.  Cas is...well the fucker has up and disappeared and Jo is hyperventilating at the mess from the doorway.  And Dean’s right in the middle of it, as always.  For once the brand on his shoulder feels more like a grounding weight, keeping him pinned in reality.  He lets any bubbling anger boil down to a simmer, lets his gut settle and holds his breath for something to happen.  But the world keeps turning and he knows he has to make himself do the same.  He’s a hunter and a soldier.  And humanity is always going to need protecting.

He ambles up to Sam’s side when he thinks he can stand to talk to him without punching his face in.  Tries not to let any lingering annoyance show.

“So,” Dean starts and then stops because he doesn’t know how to continue.

“So,” Sam says back, refusing eye contact and just staring out across the desert through the shattered window.  Dean can hear Jo behind them, trying to keep her overwhelmed crying silent but letting a whimper escape sometimes before she can stop it.  Ellen’s shushing is low as well as she shuffles around, cleaning the place uselessly.

“Bobby’s researching?”  Cas is absent and Dean is noticing it like the space he’s left behind is a massive black void in the room.

“We, uh, didn’t exactly sit back and kick up our heels while you were gone.”  His adam’s apple bobs  nervously.  “We found something...er, some _one_ , we think might be able to help.  But we aren’t sure how to get a hold of him yet.”

“So, what?  I was stuck hiding low in Eden while you were stirring the old war pot?”  Dean asks incredulously.  

“Well, we haven’t exactly done anything yet.  Just, you know, researched.”  Sam shrugs and glances around - Dean thinks he’s searching for angelic presences, Cas included, maybe because there hasn’t been anyone to watch his back for the last month and now, even with Dean’s return, it still feels vulnerable and unprotected.

They’re silent for an uneasy number of minutes before Dean manages to ask, “So who’d you find then?”

“His name’s Gabriel.  Books say he’s an archangel that fell off the radar when the war ended.”  Sam’s eyes skitter around apprehensively.  Dean doesn’t think he trusts his own intel but they haven’t got much to go on, haven’t since the Agreement was struck, so everything’s worth looking into nowadays.  “Bobby,”  Sam pauses and coughs.  “Bobby thinks he didn’t agree with sacrificing.  Says he might be willing to help.”

“You realised you’re talking about starting up a revolution, right?” Dean challenges, just to make sure he’s getting this.  Sam turns to him, shoulders set, jaw square and eyes bright with an energy and hope that’s rare nowadays.

  
“That’s the plan.  Now where’s your Goddamn angel, we’re bound to need that sword of his at some point.”


End file.
